MONTENEGRIN LANGUAGE

Cover of book on the Montenegrin language by Dr. Vojislav Nikcevic published
by Matica Crnogorska, Cetinje, 1993. The type of lettering on the cover
is from Miroslav's Gospel.

Montenegrins speak and write Montenegrin. It is sociolinguistically,
ethnically, and culturally a separate language. For example, the Montenegrin
language has 33 letters while Serbian
and Croatian each have 30.

The Montenegrin language evolved from an ancient Slavic language. It
shares the same linguistic origins as the languages of the Croats, Serbs
and Bosnians, but with distinct lexical and phonetic characteristics. These
characteristics, which define its identity, are easily recognized and give
it a national individuality.

Because this language was created by Montenegrin people, the only possible
name for it is Montenegrin just as other Slavic languages are named
after the people who speak them. The spoken form contains different dialects
used by Montenegrins in different parts of Montenegro. Both within and
outside of Montenegro, the term Montenegrin is used every day. The
traditional Montenegrin language is characterized by a tendency toward
proverbs, metaphors and condensed, figurative speech.

Before the South Slavic linguistic reforms begun in 1863, the traditional
Montenegrin language was used freely, naturally and spontaneously and so
developed to a high level of creative expressiveness, as manifested in
the rich oral literature and in the works of the genius poet Njegos. Njegos's
writing captured this original Montenegrin language. His work included
local dialects, provincialisms and neologisms. He exercised wide freedom
in the use of language - like all great writers, who are essentially creators
of language and for whom anything artistically functional is correct and
beautiful.

In the middle of the 19th century, the language of the south Slavs was
reformed. The reform was based on Vuk Stefanovic-Karadzic's faulty premise
that the language of all South Slavs, not only that of the Serbs, Croats,
Montenegrins and Bosnians but even that of the Macedonians and Bulgarians,
belonged to the same linguistic group - Stokavski. This premise was based
on the fact that they can communicate together to a greater or lesser degree.
To Vuk Stefanovic-Karadzic, correct meant "widely in use". Everything
that did not fit within this "norm" was declared incorrect and
non-literate; for example, three sounds unique to the Montenegrin language
(that are used in spoken language even today) were left out of this standardization.
This created an artificial division between oral and written language.
Even today in Montenegro, many older people and village folk still use
the original non-standard language, which is generally more expressive
and poetic.

Karadzic and later Alexandar Belic and the Serbian Academy recognized
Njegos as the greatest poet of the South Slavs. Yet their linguistic reforms
in many ways undermined the extraordinary quality and expressiveness of
Njegos' unique language.